there's a demon at my door
by lenina20
Summary: As soon as he hears that Katherine has only hours to live, Klaus returns to Mystic Falls, the cure for the cure tucked securely in his pocket. This is the story of what happens later, when he goes to find Caroline in the woods.


**a/n: this one-shot is inspired by the new KC stills that came out yesterday.**

* * *

There's a rustle of leaves, a quiet whistle of the wind, and her dead heart leaps in her chest. She knows, long before she knows. She's getting better at this, after all—so much better that, for once, she turns around and hits first while he's too busy ogling, as always. Pretending he's so _awed_, the bastard—

"How did you know?"

It's an odd place to start up, but it makes little difference, the reasons his eyebrows arch, his forehead wrinkles at her. "Caroline, love—" is how he says _hello_.

She crosses her arms over her chest. Nhft, _asshole_. "How did you know she was dying?"

She tells herself, it's only another why of asking—_why did you care? why did you save her?_ It's an empty question to hide the empty question that has buried the _how_ and what is the smallest crime, she knows, but has no fucks to give about. Because it _stings_. There's a pang in her heart and that's the one thing she promised herself she'd never allow him.

He catches up quickly, though. He smirks and takes a step closer and only the weight of his eyes peel off each layer of bullshit until she feels almost naked and shivering, standing in front of him in the woods. Again. Like that other time she thought he'd returned because he _couldn't stop thinking about her_ and then pressed her up to a tree and sank a stake right into her hardened heart.

It hurt _less_—dying in a dream and being forced to reconsider the scale of monstrosity, when Silas the all-knowing warlock came to find her in the forest only to remind her of how badly and pathetically she missed _him_.

(He had left only a few days before.)

Hurt less that the stories Tyler had to tell, right this morning; and the burn of shame colouring her deathwhite cheeks when he noticed in her glassy blue eyes, shining bright the heartache of betrayal. A baby, he said. A witch-wolf-vampire baby that can never be born. Of hybrids, Tyler told her. An ever-growing army of hybrids. One for each wolf until no wolves remain. No more vampires, either. They'd all be helpless. There'd be no more enemies that would ever pose a threat.

Magical baby blood. Good enough to make hybrids out of wolves. Good enough to _infect_ cured blood and make it sick again, pestered with magic vampire blood so that the utter _bitch_ can have another chance at living dead forever.

He whispers, answering only the question that she asked. "You know how I knew, love."

She scoffs, draws her arms tighter around her waist—as if there is a way, still, to shield herself from him. He knows because he was watching. He's always watching. Still.

Caroline's eyes fall to an old, decrepit oak tree that hovers right over his left shoulder. "Am I supposed to be flattered? You think it's _charming_, you stalking me?"

She mutters under her breath, _jackass_—and doesn't mean to make him fucking smile at her, so smug and amused and condescending. She realizes though—his arrogance only stirs up the fire and that is exactly what he wants. The angrier she grows, the more he is allowed to celebrate how deeply under her skin he's managed to crawl.

"I have a lot of enemies, Caroline, sweetheart." His hand dares to rise and cup her cheek, and she clenches her jaw. She's too stiff to move. Stupidly, she notices, she's too nervous to flee. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

The knee-jerk reaction is immediate but thankfully predictable, easy to anticipate. A lifelong of heaping insecurities hanging off the tip of her tongue in a rushed breath, but she's learned how to swallow those quick. _As if you care_, is a childish thing to say, just because he went and fucked a dirty cheap wolf-girl and knocked up and moved out with her to the state of Louisiana. As if _she_ cares.

Time to steer the conversation around, for another futile round of beating around the bush. She raises an eyebrow for effect and tilts her head. "You're also not going to let anything happen to Katherine?"

He smiles, and the dissonant languages of his face and his hands knocks the wind off her throat when she feels his fingers digging under hair, curving behind her ear to flex her neck just a tiny bit backwards. "Elijah would have never forgiven me."

He doesn't intimidate her. That's her one small victory—he _never_ intimidated her.

"Right," she chuckles, so bitter. "That's what you were thinking for the past _five hundred_ years. Go spit your bullshit to someone who wasn't collateral damage to your endless little feud."

He moves even closer, fingers knotting in her hair. For a second she holds her breath, expecting to be pushed backwards, pinned to a tree, his mouth pressed to the shell of her ear as he breathes out forbidden thoughts about secret wishes and ruffled feathers. But he only stands there, inches away, his hand tangled up in her hair as if he just needs a handle he can grab so that he doesn't tumble and fall.

The empty air of his lungs brushes the tip of her nose when he mutters, "I wish I could say I am sorry about that, love."

Sorry that she died. That Katherine killed her and made her a monster and froze her in time forever. Got her in this fucking mess to begin with.

She's angry enough to move, at last. Angry enough to slap his arm away, dig her nails in the soft flesh over his elbow so that his hand untangles but he doesn't pull back. She may want him to pull back or she may not. But the current is too strong, and she knows that if the wire breaks she'll feel the shock of electricity burning out her heartstrings deep into the bottom of her chest.

She hisses, eyes narrowed. "You've never been sorry about anything in your life."

It's been a thousand years worth of fuck-ups and meaningless bloodshed, and look at him know, smirking so smug about how he hurt her _feelings_ and that means he wins, yet again. That means she cares, she wants, she hides. Look at his eyelids falling heavy as his face inches closer to her mouth, so that he can almost draw the words over her hips.

"This isn't about Katherine, is it, love?"

It isn't. She knows him well enough, she thinks—or maybe she's made him up well enough inside her head, that she knows he must have his set of fucked-up reasons to use his magic demon baby's blood to save the woman he spent five hundred years hunting down. Reasons of pride, most likely. Refusal to let nature defeat him in the one triumph he never quite managed to conquer. Killing the woman he could never catch. The woman who renounced her humanity to escape him—and now he's taken it away himself.

He's evened out the score.

It makes Caroline _sick_, but he's right about her resentments and he knows it. They're the same, he told her once. She likes being strong, ageless, fearless. So like that time, she doesn't grant him the satisfaction of even a nod. She holds his eyes in hers and sharpens her teeth, ready to bite if he tries to kiss her.

He's so close—

—she can practically taste the familiar copper in his blood.

She swallows the tingling sensation at the back of her throat, and feels her lungs constrict at the verge of panting. But he pulls back, slowly, gently so that the shock of electricity doesn't hurt her too much when the bond snaps between them and they're no longer touching. His hand trails back to her cheek, and falls regretfully along her neck.

"For whatever little is worth, love," he says, so solemnly she feels her skin crawling, "I am sorry."

There's no smugness twisting his lips; no arrogance widening his eyes. His face has fallen and the sad expression that clouds his vibrant gaze is making her tremble on her knees.

She's buzzing with want and misplaced despair, she notices, and before he flashes into the deep of the woods and disappears, she wants to tell him that she doesn't care, he has nothing to be sorry about, it's none of her fucking business who he sleeps with or how many wolf demon babies he fathers. But before she can speak, before she can make up her mind between anger and bitterness and regret and the big mess of lies clotting her throat, he speaks again. Voice gentle and honest and unafraid, as every time he has told her what she means to him and what he wants from her.

"I'm sorry I have to leave," he tells, taking one step back. One step away. "I'm sorry you can't come with me. I'm sorry that you don't want—"

His words trail off, and he grimaces awkwardly. He didn't mean about Hayley. He meant that he left her.

For a second she's tempted to help him, maybe even say she's sorry too. She's _so_ sorry. About so many things about her life right now and the complete disaster he's made of it. When will it come, she wonders, the time a century from now when she'll be brave enough and damaged enough to say fuck it and show up at his door?

His smile is small and delicate and, as usual, it makes him look the opposite of the monster that he is. "I just came here to say that I miss you, Caroline. I really do." His lips quirk almost nervously, but he recovers, smoothes out the rugged edges of his usually confident stare and nods firmly. "And—as I said, it's your choice. However long it takes."

She doesn't nod back at him. She doesn't breathe. She just stands there, paralyzed in the darkening nest of ancient trees, not daring to think of what it means, again—

—she does nothing and watches as he bows his neck in goodbye, and disappears.

* * *

**a/n: I know that spoilers seem to suggest that something **_**more**_** will happen between Klaus and Caroline in next week's episode, but I'm not sure I like the thought of something happening if she still doesn't know about Hayley and the baby and a bit more about New Orleans, and I can't see how something may happen right away if she does know. So this little scene is the one conversation that rang true to me. Hope it wasn't too disappointing!**


End file.
